


Sunder

by wynnebat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Stiles Stilinski, Character Death, Gen, Human Peter Hale, M/M, Pre-Slash, Role Reversal, Werewolf Stiles Stilinski, Werewolf Turning, neither Stiles nor Peter die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 17:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16330613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: "She's a little young for me," John admits as he tells Stiles a little more about the woman who's caught his attention. His eyes are light with happiness at the new relationship. This Kate sounds like the perfect woman. "But you should see her with a gun.""Ew, dad," Stiles says, supportiveness forgotten. "You've seen loads of people with guns.""Not her." John is smiling.





	Sunder

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by anonymous. This started out as a headcanon meme and is kinda halfway between notfic and proper fic.

It isn't until Stiles was a sophomore in high school that his dad starts dating again. The loss of Claudia—wife, mother, and alpha—had been hard on both of them, but Stiles probes his feelings and finds himself cautiously happy for his dad.

He'd expected to feel more conflicted about it, and going by the cautious way his dad gives him the news so had John, but the whole situation is more weird than anything. Stiles had always thought that if his dad would date anyone after his mom, it would be Melissa, their emissary. He and Scott had long ago come to the conclusion that if the universe hadn't made them brothers in the first place, then it would eventually realize its mistake and their parents would marry. Still, Stiles tries to be supportive. Maybe this Kate is a stepping stone to John and Melissa finally getting together. Or even if she isn't, Stiles likes seeing his dad happy. 

His mom would've wanted it this way, he knows, and Stiles is careful not to let himself feel the complicated grief he still has for his mom. She'd been his alpha his entire life, from his birth to her death. When the power went to his dad after her death, Stiles had to adjust to seeing his dad as not only a parent, but the alpha, no matter how much his instincts didn't want to acknowledge that anyone could be as good an alpha as his mom.

"She's a little young for me," John admits as he tells Stiles a little more about the woman who's caught his attention. His eyes are light with happiness at the new relationship. This Kate sounds like the perfect woman. "But you should see her with a gun."

"Ew, dad," Stiles says, supportiveness forgotten. "You've seen loads of people with guns."

"Not her." John is smiling.

Stiles meets her for the first time when he drops by the sheriff's station later that week. It's exactly as weird as he'd expected it to be. Kate Nowak works for the NRA as a firearm trainer and community educator. She's fit, confident, and gives off the vibe of an even more badass Lydia Martin. Stiles has the disturbing realization that he and his dad might have the same type. Except where Lydia's inner self occasionally shines through, absolutely brilliant and sometimes self-conscious of her intellect, everything about Kate is polished and sleek.

She's not alpha material, he thinks, wrinkling his nose discreetly. Neither would she be a beta. With full certainty that it's probably at least half unacknowledged issues surrounding his mom popping up, Stiles tries his best to like her. She doesn't seem that bad. She smells like guns without being carrying a badge, which he always associates with hunters, but still. 

Stiles groans as he flops onto his bed, his dad gone on another date. Of the universe, he asks, "Why couldn't he just date Melissa?"

Unaware of the supernatural or not, Stiles is going to growl at her if she tries mothering him. Kate is never going to be pack. They're a small pack, him and his dad and their emissary, but Stiles isn't interested in expanding.

Weeks pass. Stiles watches his dad leave and return from dates, always with a smile, and Stiles manages to settle somewhat. His wolf is still too close to the surface when he's around her, but it's better. Ish. Sometimes he looks down at his hands and almost expects to see claws. What his dad, his alpha, doesn't know won't hurt him. 

Kate doesn't try mothering him, which Stiles appreciates. She does hit on him once—maybe, Stiles isn't used to normal girls being interested in him, let alone older women—but when Stiles doesn't react, she switches tracks completely. A few times, his dad runs late at the office and Stiles and Kate chat on the porch while they wait for him to get back. Stiles asks her a lot of questions. It's not an interrogation, primarily because his dad would be pissed if it were, but it's something. He isn't always able to pay proper attention to people, blame it on the ADHD, but with Kate, he listens. He can't put his finger on it, but something's off about her.

He finds several inconsistencies in her story. It's not enough, mostly small stuff, the kinds of things that can be explained away. She's from a family with more money than she lets on; maybe she doesn't want the Stilinskis feeling awkward. She always carries a gun; maybe she's had some bad experiences with men. She never, ever straight-out lies. She'll obfuscate or subtly change the subject, but she never once lies to him.

That's what gets him. Everyone lies. Sometimes to make themselves seem smarter or more put together, sometimes because they want to keep their past or feelings private, sometimes because it's just easier to quickly lie than get into the details. Kate doesn't.

Stiles doesn't bring it up to his dad. What's he going to say, anyway? _Your girlfriend is too honest, send her back?_ Instead, he decides to do the adult thing and accesses her records on his dad's work computer while his dad's distracted by another deputy. Katerina Nowak, age 31. She's older than she looks. The driver's license photo is two years old but could've been taken last week. Stiles gets so deep into the research that his dad's reappearance sends him into a flailing effort to close the program. He fails.

"Oh, Stiles," John says, and he's not even mad as he closes the tab. "Do you want to talk about it, kid?"

Stiles does. He tells John about everything that's wrong with her, every little thing that's been bothering him ever since they first met.

"And she doesn't smell right," Stiles finishes. Her perfume is weird and her guns aren't police-standard and she's not Mom. He says the first two, but what John hears is the last. Stiles can't seem to find a way to stop sounding like a little kid about the whole thing. He curls into his dad's hug like a pup and inhales his comforting scent. There's traces of Kate on him, subtle but there, like a slow infection coming on. That part, he definitely doesn't say.

A few days later, John meets with Kate and says that maybe they're moving too fast, that Stiles isn't sure of their relationship, that it might be good to take a break. Kate convinces him to have one more dinner. At home with Stiles this time, because she reasons that Stiles doesn't really know her. John, caught between two opposing forces, agrees. He loves his son, but Kate is lovely and fun and so damn easy to begin to fall in love with, and it's not like Stiles specifically asked him to stop seeing her. Stiles never would. Maybe it really would just take some time until Stiles warms up to her.

Stiles doesn't warm up to her. Emotionally, anyway. Instead of an awkward dinner where Stiles has to try to make an effort to like his dad's girlfriend, it's the worst day of his life. It doesn't even dawn on him until she enters the house, her scent different. 

There's a sickly sweet element to it that Stiles doesn't recognize until the wolfsbane bomb starts burning him up from the inside. Stiles staggers forward with his claws out, intending to rip her throat out. She's fast. When he's not looking, four more hunters enter from the back door. He's shot once, kills two, falls to the ground with his dad's howl in his ears. The house is burning and Stiles can barely move, but he manages to crawl toward his dad, his pack, his _alpha_.

"Stiles," John manages, his voice weaker than Stiles has ever heard it.

"I'm alive. We're going to be okay, Dad, come on, please get up, come on." Stiles can't even get up, but he still pulls at his dad. He tries not to think about how much blood there is around his dad's abdomen or how woozy he feels himself.

Stiles' name is the last thing John ever says. Stiles hears John's heart stop and feels it in the pulse of his wrist. The alpha power is a rush when it reaches him. Stiles sobs, because this is his mom's power, his dad's, and it was never supposed to be his. Even with the new energy, he can't break through the mountain ash barrier around the living room. All he can do is crawl to the most fortified area and hope that someone will save him in time. Because if Stiles survives, he's going after Kate with everything he has.

 

*

 

In the wake of the sheriff's death, Peter gets recalled to Beacon Hills. He sighs loudly about it, but he heads to his hometown. His relationship with his sister is complicated, as siblings with such a large age gap that he's closer to her kids' ages, and neither of them were ever good at finding a balance in their relationship. Talia was the heir to the family's legacy, the Hale who went into politics and became mayor of Beacon Hills just like her mother before her. Peter does well for himself as an attorney working for a large firm in San Francisco, but the older generation of Hales see it as a betrayal, can't understand why he'd permanently leave Beacon Hills. The Hales practically built this town. Et cetera, et cetera. Peter's heard it a thousand times.

But he's still Peter Hale, and so when Talia realizes that the chief deputy will take the sheriff's seat until reelection, she calls in a favor from her baby brother. She can't stand Chief Deputy Boden, thinks he's corrupt even though she can't prove it. She won't have him in that office. (Peter's never heard the term left hand, but the glove will always fit.) He takes an abrupt vacation, cites a family emergency, and heads to his hometown. It's not home anymore, but it's still charming in its own way. He hasn't been out of the city in months and takes a moment to get used to the suburban layout again. 

His first top is the reason for all this mess: the fire at the Stilinski home on the edge of town. The police have already gone over the crime scene diligently—it was one of their own—but Peter still loiters and lingers. Terrible thing, this fire. He hadn't been intending to come back to Beacon Hills at least until Christmas, and now he'll be stuck here twice in one year. It takes Peter a week to do the rounds of checking on his family. He casually drops by the police station (Boden's still an idiot with a bad tempter, good to know) once and the mayor's office twice. Talia looks so stressed. Tragedy is no good when it's the sheriff who dies in a fire that was found to be man-made. Some people blame Talia’s supposedly failed anti-crime measures, some are panicked about it happening to them. They’re idiots. The longer Peter lingers, the more he comes to realize that the attack on the Stilinskis was acutely targeted. It's not some maniac with a matchbox who doesn't care who gets hurt. Under Boden, the investigation only barely gets within view of competency.

Peter charms his way into the son's hospital room. He's no longer in intensive care, which considering those burns is a miracle. The young man is in a coma at the moment. According to his doctor, there is still a good chance that he will wake up in the coming days. The longer he sleeps, the lower that chance will get.

"Genim Stilinski," he says, sitting down in a visitor’s chair. “My name is Peter Hale. I’ve been told you may be able to hear me through the coma, so I hope you understand that you are very inconvenient. I had this month all planned out before Talia called to cash in a favor from five fucking years ago. I can’t believe she still remembers it. Although maybe I do—I would’ve never forgotten, had the tables been turned.” Thoughtfully, he adds, “I might have ratted her out myself without bothering to keep a favor. Talia would've still been resistant to any favors I might've wanted from her." He sighs deeply. There is no one here to see him be dramatic. No one but a scarred, comatose teenager who refuses to wake up and tell Peter who the culprit was. If he can get the information, he can surely spin it in a way that casts doubt on the chief deputy's competence. Talia would be pleased for once in her life and Peter could return to San Francisco. Maybe he could even argue his way out of Christmas; he's already seen everyone now. He can send the gifts by post.

He takes to visiting the young man every other day. If—as one of the nurses says he prefers to be called—Stiles wakes up, Peter wants to be the first one to hear his account. 

One of those days, he bumps into a woman as he leaves the hospital room. She introduces herself as John's girlfriend, which he already knows. He's never seen her in person. She's been mentioned by the deputies a few times. There are no photographs of her. Even so, Peter can imagine her to be even prettier when she's not so obviously grieving. The area around her eyes is red and puffy, but her eyes are hard. Peter's great-grandparents died within his lifetime, but he counts himself lucky that he's never lost a partner or a parent. No matter how annoyed he may get with his family, he's never wanted them dead.

The doors of the elevator have already opened for him when Peter feels the impulse to return. Even if the chief deputy had cleared her of suspicion, Kate could still know something… The scene he returns to is of Kate holding a pillow to Stiles' head. Her muscles are straining to hold him down while Stiles' arms move out and up, shakily trying to save himself. When Kate sees Peter in the doorway, she turns her full attention to him.

"I hadn't wanted to do this," she says, pulling out her gun.

She doesn't mean murder, Peter realizes. She means shooting someone in a busy hospital where someone will hear her shots. "I'm unarmed. So is he." Peter glances at Stiles, whose body is still and comatose again. Fuck, no help from that corner. "No one here means you any harm."

Kate snorts. "Not until he wakes up. If it's happening this soon, the only explanation is that the alpha power transferred to him. You must have noticed that his burns are healing."

"I did," Peter admits. That had been his other source of curiosity regarding Stiles. He'd thought— well, he hadn't known what he'd thought.

"He's a monster," Kate reveals. "A werewolf, just like his father. His kind are a blight on this earth. You should leave now before I decide to put you down as well."

"Werewolves aren't real," Peter says, right before realizing that he shouldn't try to break through a delusional person's illusions. She's already killed John Stilinski and put his son in a coma. Peter doesn't intend to get on that list.

Peter has never considered himself to be a particularly good person. Stiles is a fascinating mystery, but Kate has a weapon and she's not disinclined to use it. He's not about to die for a stranger. It would be a pointless end to a life he's not even halfway finished with. Before he can carefully edge his way out of the room, Stiles springs forward, crashing into Kate with more force than he should've been able to. It evens the odds enough for Peter to grab the metal visitor's chair to hit her with.

He'd memorized Stiles' face during his visits, but it's gone different. Hairy, pointed, odd, nothing like Peter would've imagined a werewolf to look. Although his idea of a werewolf had been of a human turning into a wolf, not this strange, partial transformation. In the chaos of the fight, one of Kate's bullets hits Peter in the chest. Peter doesn't feel it until he collapses backward onto the cold checkered floor. He's gasping for air, but there's no pillow over his face, just blood seeping through his shirt and covering his hands. Distantly, he hears the sounds of fighting stop. Sometime in the last few minutes, his eyes had closed. When Peter opens them, Stiles is leaning over him.

“You must be Peter,” Stiles rasps. There is a rapidly healing bruise on his throat. His burns are miraculously gone. His eyes are glowing and red, and Peter can't decide if that's a hallucination or actually real.

"Are you going to kill me, too?" Peter can't tell if he managed to say that aloud or not. It's all fuzzy in his head. He feels like he's falling even though he knows his back is to the floor.

"No," Stiles promises. "I'm going to save you. I rang the emergency button and can look for a doctor now—might not be able to fight one in time, fuck—or I can give you the bite. It means that you'll be like me. Peter, listen to me. Peter! You have to decide. Do you want the bite?"

His vision is going. He needs a doctor, but all he has is Stiles, Stiles and this transformation he's promising. He knows he doesn't have all the facts. Kate's presence makes that very clear. But Peter needs a lifeline, and this promises to be the most life-changing choice he would ever make. "Yes."

He barely feels the way Stiles' sharp teeth sink into his wrist. What he does feel is the way Stiles takes most of his pain away. And he feels something deep inside him change, grow, until he opens his eyes and sees. He'd thought he'd seen Stiles before, but he'd never looked at him with a pack bond brimming to life, never as a beta looks at an alpha. 

In time, Peter takes to werewolf life like he was born to it, quitting his job and moving to Beacon Hills to be closer to Stiles while Stiles finishes high school. The older generation of Hales is happy, saying they always knew he’d return, but they’re less pleased by the fact that Stiles’ pack keeps adding Hales like there’s no tomorrow. The Hales were always meant to be wolves after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/).


End file.
